“The Future of PlayStation” Might Not Be the PlayStation 4, It Could be Something Bigger

DualShockers writes, "In a couple of days, all eyes will be on the Hamerstein stage in New York City as Sony shows us “the future of PlayStation.” And while all signs point to a PlayStation 4 reveal, there’s another service that will likely steal the show. Sony’s purchase of Gaikai last summer for $380 million dollars may finally begin to bare fruit, and it could turn out to be Sony’s best move since, well… ever."

sorry for the dislike when i read this bit of your comment "Perhaps a PS4 that is both console when hooked to a TV and portable when you want to take it with you. " i thought that is overly ambitious and not possible but i thought about it for a second and it finally clicked, imagine if you can stream ps4 games to your psvita via gaikai!!! i was mind blown. come on sony make it happen! that will truly send shockwaves in the gaming industry.

It would send shockwaves through the industry because it would be immensely stupid. Why would they announce a new home console, that is likely going to be more expensive than a PSVITA, and then immediately remove any reason to purchase it by allowing you to play all of it's games on a cheaper device?

That is still going on the assumption that when the origanal Xbox was developed they intended to continue a linier number naming. There are many decisions that went into the "360" name, but you or anyone else on here cant say that it was the intent to be called the Xbox 2. Like I said its not the norm to sequentially number consoles from generation to generation.

@darthv72 regardless of system, my point stands. It didn't work out well for Sega.

And more established in what way? The Saturn was Sega's third home console, which followed the fairly successful Genesis.

And exactly how do you feel Sony could pull it off? They haven't been able to pull of much of anything over the last year or so. The Vita has been a bust, software sales for their big exclusive retail games have been nearly non-existent.

Additionally what consumer has $400-600 just sitting around ready to be spent on a newly released system. I just don't see how Sony could pull this off any better than Sega did 18 years ago.

That's not really how it went down. They announced it several months earlier, but then came out and said it would be available the next day. It left retailers and developers completely unprepared and is considered one of the worst launches in console history because of that. It only had a few games, and was hard to find in stores for several weeks.

Also, that kind of rumor would not be able to be held back. Retailers would already be receiving stock to ship out if they were going to release it anytime in the next few weeks.

I've said before that this will one day be the future of consoles, but we're at least a generation away from that. But at some point a portable will be so powerful and cheap that there will be little point to a traditional console. With wireless HDMI you could just connect to any TV in the room.

But I might be sitting in a rocking chair in the retirement home before we get there :)

gaikai will provide huge support for the playstaion brand specially if it can provide a service similar to that of steam but for consoles. i still think it would take gaikai some time to get there and while it may be the future of playstation the 2/20 will more likely be focused on the ps4.

Honestly, I don't see them carrying the Gaikai name much longer. If they rebranded it as "PlayStation Now" that would help the service gain momentum quickly because now you're putting the PS brand power behind it.

I seriously can't think what could be bigger then a PS4.And with so many reliable sources leaking information and Sony remaining silent about denying the PS4 I can't see how anyone would think anything could be bigger.I mean if Sony can top that in any way I think people's heads will explode. The only thing I could think of is a box that could beam virtual reality that turns you whole house into a gaming world.And that isn't as far fetched as you think.I watched Sony show off the tech and it exists. They made a lush forest appear right in the place they were showing it off.

we as gamers are evidently focused on the real meat grinder here, the console. But SONY has been trying to unufy their media/entertainment/electronic s business, so the "bigger than PS4" to me is in scope. Im thinking they have a OS thats streamlined, that makes sense, a OS and therefore a console that fits nicely with everything else MS does...which is something i like about Apple and helps them succeed and SONY has failed miserably at

If it was something like that they wouldn't make a whole big production out of it.Obviously unifying everything into one big thing would be important as well but they could have easily have just talked about that online. I am not saying they won't talk about anything else but the main meat of this will be the PS4. Anything else will be just gravy. I am sure they would gather everyone together to say 'We have a new OS and that's it and oh yeah we are using Gaikai and we have some games here and a price cut'. Now don't tell me that sounds exciting to you.They could have easily just as well told us that online and save the money to do something else,Anything else below PS4 didn't have to be told on stage.It could have easily have waited for E3 or be tod to us online. They obviously want to make a big production about whatever they reveal and revealing a new OS won't make that happen.I am sure no one will be on the edge of their seats waiting to hear about a price cut, Gaikai or a new OS.

That's what worries me. There seem to be too many variables that may work in Sony's favor but not necessarily the consumer's if this is the model they go with.

How do they justify charging me to stream a whole library of games when I'm content with the games I already own? You've also got the issue of internet speeds and the poor saps out there who don't even have internet.

I'm excited and full of bewilderment at the same time. I've never felt this way about an upcoming console.

I would be more worried if this was Microsoft...they just dont seem to think there are times internet does down and all the shenanigans it comes with it. SONY has stated repeatedly that while they believe full digital is coming, their one main concern is internet speed and availability;

So my guess is they have something tweaked in that respect inside SEN-Gaikai.

I dont think (wishful thinking :) ) they will charge for games you already own; Maybe, ps3 game stream on ps4 will be a plus service and you just have to register the games you own and be able to stream them. That way you wouldnt have to pay them for every game you already own and they would make some cash off PS+.

"Cloud gaming" will likely not catch on with multiplayer games, that require ms precision. The fact that one packet lag can cause terrible experience, how do you think the experience is when your entire input and output is dependent on this bottleneck?

Right now, top of the line internet connection can get you 720p at 30fps streaming. Even then the experience is poor, now imagine gazillion people doing this...

The internet doesn't guarantee a timely arrively of data, nor does it even guarantee arrival at all.

I don't think even 10-years from now we will get any close to being able to have enough people with good enough connection to go all "cloud gaming".

Now if you don't buy the game, but pay for a buffet style suite of games, who gets your money?

Right now each disc lands Sony and MS $10.

But with a service they can charge what they want and take a different, bigger cut. When they raise the price of the service, and they will, they can use that to alter again how much the devs get and how much Sony/MS gets. Say they give 80 percent to devs and charge $20 a month. That would mean devs get $16 a month and Sony/MS $4. Now what happens when it's raised to $25? They could say, well we're giving them $16 still, or maybe 18, but now we'll be getting $7-9. See how this goes? How every price increase can alter the % of money going to devs away from them and into the pocket of Sony/MS.

Also of that amount they pay out, how do they determine who gets paid?

If they do it 'equally', then Aliens Colonial Marines will get the same amount as say Halo or CoD or Uncharted or Killzone.

Is that fair?

Oh well what if they decide to do it by 'time played'. Well then that STILL isn't fair. Because there are many games which I purchase for $60 and play 1/5th as much as other games, but I feel satisfied by the experience. Thus if you go by 'time played' then games where people are always online, say like multiplayer games....CoD, Battlefield, etc....those games would get the lion share. So you might end up paying $200 for CoD instead of 60, whereas for say Two Souls you might be paying the devs $10-$15 because you played through it once or twice.

Certain genres like multiplayer shooters would have advantages over say a regular single player game like Two Souls or fighting games. RPG's like Skyrim would probably be in the middle.

Thus you might make a situation where simply the genre of the game alters the amount of money a dev gets.

Thus you'll get situations where devs will do ANYTHING to increase the amount of time you play the game. Say hello to mountains of text that you can't fast forward through. Things like this would have huge ramifications in terms of unintended consequences.

Who chooses what games get on, and what games drop off? Who knows how fast the games 'depreciate' and get less. Afterall what will CoD MW3 bring in when CoD Blops 2 comes out type situation?

It would have to be something like that, because else how to you pay devs for 1000 games like the 360 has roughly compared to say when the system launches and only 20 games are there. As time goes on more hands would be pulling from the pie, even if they decrease over time, however they set such a thing up (which can be problematic itself). So whether you do or don't problems exist. Simply by STARTING a service such as this. That's where the problem BEGINS because it's needlessly INSERTED where it DOESN"T NEED TO BE.

Right now you have situations where you the consumer can send the signal and the money to the devs by BUYING the game. You add an unnecessary, wholly arbitrary middleman who can not only siphon off a larger and larger chunk at will, but also can set the whole thing up that favors certain games and genres over others. This would effectively narrow the gaming choice we have and close down a ton of devs as if Beyond: Two Souls only gets $10 per person and CoD gets $200, well you can guess what games will be made, and what games WON'T be made.

There's many more aspects then just this, and even on this, this is just one person thinking for a short period of time the flaws. There will be many more if such a service becomes a reality.

Not every invention is progress. Not everything new is good. Were derivatives progress? Were they needed for banking? Nope. They brought us the new and ongoing greatest depression.

Nuclear bombs? We're they necessary for anything? No. They didn't end WWII.

So why do we need game streaming service? Do you really think you benefit from such a setup, or harmed? Well when your game choice narrows, you have irritating factors such as lag-hammered servers for new games-games you want to play dropped from the list-fewer devs making games-outages effecting single player including your game saves instead of just multiplayer, less control over your gaming, and increased costs, among many other things, you might feel a bit differently about such 'progress'.

Heres the thing, its almost certainly an optional experience. You choose if you want to use the service. No ones forcing you.

And as for how they work out how much to pay each developer you do it on a "hits" basis. The more people that play your game the more you get paid. Games that are good will get more people streaming them, multiple times in ordrr to complete the game or enjoy multiplayer, poor games people may try once and not go back to again.

Have any of you guys ever even tried the gaikai service before spouting off about how bad it is? I had a crappy 3mb connecgion and was able tonstream alan wake on a budget best buy 279.00 computer with no issues.

I wont disagree with the online part as it would be a nightmare playing against all the bandwith leeching d bags and torrent downloadersnwho purposely lag to up their k/d ratio. The single player aspect worked fine.

As far as those without highspeed net if they choose to upgrade to a new system then chances are they will play the new ga.es and keep their old systems like most in that situation. You guys are making a mountain out of a mole hill

No they prefer to complain about everything before they even know how well it works.Thinking sensibly and keeping an open mind is not a gamer's strong point these days.Better to make wild assumptions and panic before thinking rationally.Sony gamers can be the most irrational people in the bunch.Don't bother to find out how well Gaikai works on the system or how it will be used. Just panic and spout off as much ignorance as you can think of.

Something I have not heard from any of the news site rumors is a TV service. There were rumors about it around CES this year but was not announced. So maybe 1 of the big features is this all in 1 TV service?

ps4 is a games console not a tv-tuner/receiver or whatever. i think it would work better in sony's favour if they don't venture too far from core gaming the reason why i prefer the sony. sony has the best netfelix service so it it is an app like netfelix then maybe

i would love the ps4 to be revealed along side Gaikai service with a september 2013 ps4 release date but 21st feb Gaikai service was up and running on ps3 with streaming ps4 game demos which were shown at the event, mind blown.

I like the idea of Gaikai, but I pose a question to anybody who was complaining about the PS4 or Xbox 720 requiring to always be online. Doesn't it bother you that you can only play the games when online and with input lag during single player games? I have fast Internet, but I just don't like the idea of playing single player games with lag.